The second annual Harpy*s Fair is right around the corner, with booths encompassing all things gender equity and social justice. 

“It’s basically a fair surrounding the Women’s Center and Coalition for Women Students,” Le’Dashia Orndorff, CWS chair said. “It’s a fair for people to basically get to know the organization. We’re also bringing in some of our community resources that basically support our mission for gender equity.”

CWS is comprised of ten total groups, four of which are inactive at the moment, Orndorff said. The active six look at different social injustices and will each have a booth at the fair promoting their goals. 

Association of Pacific and Asian Women, Native American Women’s Association, Queer Intersections Association, Black Women’s Caucus, Mujeres Unidas, Period at WSU and Harpy*s Magazine are all underneath CWS that will be in attendance, said Audrey Almeria, Period co-chair.

“We’ll have a table for our inactive organizations, so if anybody’s looking to get involved in an organization that we currently have that’s inactive and they want to start it back up, there’ll be a table to sign up for that,” Orndorff said.

One of the groups within CWS, Period, is a national nonprofit with the goal of eradicating period poverty, which means a lack of access to menstrual products, Almeria said.

“Our chapter at Wazzu sort of tackles this in the Palouse with advocacy, education and most importantly service,” Almeria said. “So we do a lot of fundraising and we do a lot of distribution trips with menstrual products, but also with food and water and blankets to communities who need it the most.”

Almeria said her goal for this year as co-chair is to get as many students involved with Period as possible, and not just cisgender women. Period is a grassroots organization that hopes to get any and all students involved. 

“The Women*s Center will have a booth there, where we just talk about our resources and what we have to provide, the Community Action Center in Whitman County will have a table there,” Orndorff said. “We also have CAPS, so the Counseling and Psychological Services and Peer Health Educators will be there.”

The point of this fair is to get the resources that the Women*s Center and other organizations on campus offer to the students, as well as recruit new members for the CWS organizations, Orndorff said. Post-pandemic registered student organizations do not have the same membership number they did pre-pandemic, and Harpy*s Fair wants to change that.

“That’s kind of our goal with this fair is to just get all of the resources and get all of the groups that we have housed in the Women*s Center and within campus who support our mission for gender equity out there,” Orndorff said.

Harpy*s Fair will be on Friday, September 23, from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. on Glenn Terrell Mall.